Voice of Session House 2021: Sakiko Yokoo
We received a letter from Sakiko Yokoo, who heads the nonprofit organization “Joining Hands: Mexico and Japan (手をつなぎメキシコと日本)” in Mexico and has realized numerous exchange projects by inviting dancers and artists from Japan to Mexico. Yokoo invited Mademoiselle Cinema in 2018, and tells us that she recently became a Buddhist priest. This may seem surprising, but she says that in its spirit of “altruism,” it is the same as her nonprofit work.
Sakiko Yokoo: “A Voice from Mexico”
Hello, everyone. Hello from the other side of the earth.
The sky glimpsed between the buildings of Mexico City, even when steeped in air pollution, is unquestionably connected to the place where you are. And now, like this, I am sending my thoughts toward the basement studio of Kagurazaka Session House.
On a personal note, I became a Buddhist priest at the end of last year. I intend to devote my life to practice as a dancing nun. On the night I finished my training at a temple in Kyoto and returned to the everyday world, I encountered six butoh works at a small theater. The following day, I beheld a butoh spectacle by Dairakudakan in Nara. And the day after that, in Kagurazaka, I savored Mademoiselle Cinema’s “Tokyo—Under the Sky” from a front-row seat.
I cannot believe that being so thoroughly immersed in dance the moment I became a priest was merely a coincidence. Surely it was a connection brought about by the Buddha. Shinran Shonin said, “Even if your body is ground to dust and your bones are shattered, live in gratitude for the Buddha’s kindness.” And dancers embody precisely that! With only their bodies, they confront life, struggle, and shine: they are true seekers of the Way! I felt as though the scales were falling from my eyes one after another. And I understood anew why I love dance.
Now, what is “Buddha”? To be honest, these days the word is probably synonymous with a dead person, or something one tries believing in only when in trouble. But I understand it as “the workings of nature.” In other words, the truths that all lives are interconnected and sustained by one another, that everything living will inevitably die, and that there is no night that does not end. Even this life has been received from and supported by other lives, yet because we think, “This life is mine,” I think we become excessively attached to it, or take our own lives.
To live this precious life to the fullest. That is all there is to it. During those three days immersed in dance, the dancers conveyed that with their whole bodies and souls. Their overflowing vitality seeped through every pore in my body, right into my innermost organs.
As for why I became a priest, it was to become the head priest of a temple cultural center in Mexico City. With early Buddhism—the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha 2,600 years ago—as its axis, our aim is to spread a spirit of peaceful coexistence through various cultural activities, enabling us to recognize and enjoy one another’s differences. So I would like to take people such as Session House’s Takashi and Naoko Ito, who provide a place for expression and bring people together and nurture their connections, as my models: bodhisattvas overflowing with the spirit of altruism.
It has already been two years since we suspended in-person activities at the temple because of the pandemic and renovation work. During that time, we have been translating books on Buddhism and creating animations of Buddhist stories, gradually sharing the results. People in Mexico have responded with empathy, saying, “These are teachings we want to hear right now.” The most important of Shakyamuni’s teachings can be said to be “compassion.” Because it is the universal heart that makes human beings human, it must transcend religions, national borders, and eras. I remember being ten years old and sobbing after witnessing my grandmother’s death, and the priest saying to me, “It’s sad, isn’t it? That’s why we must be kind to people.” And when I watch dance, I feel that weight, intensity, and warmth of life—which needs no reasoning and can never be fully expressed in words—deep in my viscera. As for the members of Mademoiselle, they are so frank and exposed that I almost wonder whether they need to go so far, yet they are modest and lovable, and the strings of my heart are plucked into utter disarray.
So dance cannot possibly be nonessential or nonurgent. I fervently feel that now, of all times, we must dance; we must make life dance. Come on, let’s dance!
Sakiko Yokoo
Excerpt from Voice of Session House 2021
Sakiko Yokoo and the members of Mademoiselle Cinema
